“Most certainly I do not deny that I held Ann Price in my arms, nor that I did kiss her, as you say. And, if you hold that I did wrongly in suffering the caprice of a dying woman, why, madam, I must tell you that ’tis you that err, not I.”
“But—but—but she had sworn you should kiss her!” whimpered Joan, falteringly. “Gardener Tom told me so.”
“Madam, could I help that? She was sick to death, as you know. Whether ’twas for affection, which I doubt, or for spite, or for some other motive, I could do naught but that which I did. I will neither deny the action, nor excuse myself for it: since there was naught to be done but humor her.”
Joan looked at him through her tears; but although she still endeavored to maintain her cold and haughty demeanor, it was plain both that she was longing to find some way of getting out of the position she had taken up, and that she was rejoiced at seeing her lover again. Tregenna, on his side, was just as feverishly happy in this meeting as she, and just as eager to go on with the quarrel, if that were the only way of holding converse with her.
She uttered another sob.
“I thought you cared for me!” sighed she.
“Madam, I thought I did also.”
“But I see plainly you do not!”
“Nay, madam, then your eyes are keen to see the thing which is not!”
“If—if you cared for me, you would have been to visit me—while I was at my aunt’s!”